European Jazz Orchestra

The European Jazz Orchestra, EJO (2005 + 2008 to 2013) was the continuation of The European Jazz Youth Orchestra, EJYO (1998 to 2004, and 2006 to 2007) - an annual jazz big band project initiated by Birgit Vinge and Erik Moseholm, organised by the Danish-based organization Swinging Europe and supported by the EU-Commission. In 2005 the European Broadcasting Union, EBU (the world wide network of jazz producers from the National Public Radio stations) joined the project and the EBU Big Band (see EBU/UER Big Band) and Swinging Europe/EJYO were merged, forming what became known as the EBU-European Jazz Orchestra.

The forerunner was the 1996 project Brande International Music Workshop Orchestra.

The project
Each year a new conductor and new composers were chosen and a band was formed by selected young jazz artists from the European countries. Rehearsels took place in Brande, Denmark (1998-2009) and Herning, Denmark (2010-2013) followed by a three weeks concert tour. More concerts were broadcasted and by the end of the tour one or more concerts were recorded and issued on CD (minus 1999 and 2002). Since 1998 and 2013, around 300 European musicians participated in the annual orchestra and over 200 concerts were organised in 35 countries in Europe, North and South America and in Asia.

Conductors
1998: Pierre Dørge (Denmark)
1999: Francois Théberge (France)
2000: Helge Albin (Sweden)
2001: Benjamin Herman (The Netherlands)
2002: Django Bates (UK)
2003: Bruno Tommaso (Italy)
2004: Pedro Moreira (Portugal)
2005: Vic Vogel (Canada)
2006: Barrie Forgie (UK)
2007: Lars Møller (Denmark)
2008: Niels Klein (Germany)
2009: Peter Herbolzheimer (Romania)
2010: Tadej Tomšič (Slovenia)
2011: Jere Laukkanen (Finland)
2012: Igor Stetsyuk (Ukraine)
2013: Ann-Sofi Söderqvist (Sweden)